The terms of public service are the prerogative of the public. Fundamental among those terms; public servants are accountable to the public, and to meaningful standards of conduct and competence, at least for the eight measly hours a day that we have to "trust" them with the control over our power and our resources.

Friday, September 19, 2014

D'Val Westfal, "of the Journal" comes this morning, link , with what look like the facts about how much time is actually spent testing public school students. We don't and won't know for certain that they are "the facts" until we hear from someone with a different set of facts.

I'm sure that APS School Board Member and, StandUp4Kids NM co-founder Kathy Korte's rebuttal to Westphal's facts cannot be far away; perhaps in an op-ed of her own.

The pity is, Westfal facts and Korte's rebuttal will never meet each other; the disagreement between them will not be settled civilly, it will not be settled at all.

There will never be a "workshop" on testing.

Educated, experienced and dedicated proponents and opponents, good and decent people with different opinions, will never get together in an impartially facilitated open meeting. Interest and stakeholders will never get to the bottom of the issue.

An old friend used to talk about settling issues by means of
"getting all the liars at the same table".

All the "liars" who know and care about testing and students' best interests will never get together in the same room at the same time to compare their lies wart by wart by wart.

It is not the people with the better facts who fear such a meeting, it is those with half-truths and out of context facts who won't sit down. They would rather screech in tweets than have their opinions tested in a civil discussion.

The real problem with open and honestly facilitated public meetings is that the outcome cannot be preordained. Asses cannot be covered.

If a liar or a half-truther or an out-of-contexter, or stonewaller
actually had to sit down at such a table, they would be exposed.
Ergo, they don't sit down; don't even talk about sitting down.

D'Val Westfal asked readers to send her recommendations for a New Mexico Bucket list.

How about;

a time, a day and a place where stake and interest holders can participate in open and honest civil discussions and meaningful decision making on the issue of student testing? or,Common Core or
or teacher evaluationsstudent Discipline oradministrative and executive ethics, standards and accountability